Heart shape Paper Mache box with Quilled Royal flower

Just thought to share one of our lovely creation, heart shape box with paper quilled Royal Flower on the eve of Valentine's Day.
This paper mache box was created with lots of love. It was hand painted and then decorated with paper quilling.
Paper quilled royal flower adds elegance to the the box.

Seems the box is just waiting to be filled with lots of lovely chocolates or a surprise gift.

We wish all our readers a very happy Valentine's Day. We do celebrate this lovely occasion with lots of love and chocolates and of course lots of Valentine's day craft. In fact this year, since my 4 year old daughter is in preschool seems we will be celebrating it for the entire week. Here in USA kids celebrate it in school and give lovely cards and some cute valentine gifts to all their friends and teachers.They make crafts almost everyday for the entire week with heart, red color etc as theme. We will share her creations as and when possible.

One thing we have learnt is this lovely occasion gives one more reason to make your loved ones feel extra special by telling them how special they are and how much they mean to you. If not anything huge, just make a little card and let them know.

Paper Quilling Flower and Butterfly Note card

I always knew that sharing your skills is a good idea and but didn’t know that it will be so much fun and at the same time will give such creative satisfaction.
This beautiful Paper Quilling note card was created by one of my students - A very talented, soon to be 9 years old girl. She is full of enthusiasm and very eager to learn new concepts and techniques. She made this during her first quilling class.

What amazed me was the ease with which she grasped use of quilling tool, the neatness in her work, considering it was the first time she was quilling. I am sure it came from the efforts she and her mom would have put in doing various kinds of crafts earlier. We believe that if you are good at one craft, it does give you an advantage in learning other kinds of craft. I guess it is something like if you are good in one sport chances are you will do well in others as well.


It gives me immense pleasure to share her creation here. In this class she learnt

- History of quilling
- Tools used for quilling
- Basic quilling shapes : tight coil, loose coil, tear drop shape, scroll
- Different kinds of paper strips used for quilling
- Quilling with multiple colors
- Concept of contrasting colors
- Using Martha Stewart Border Punch

She was very excited throughout the process. Hope she continues to learn this wonderful art and many other beautiful and challenging crafts.

Paper Quilling Flowers

Summer vacations are on here in US. Its amazing how busy parents get when kids are not going to school. It becomes a big task to keep them engaged and not listen to " I am getting bored " all the time ( so I hear from other parents..mine is still on two syllable words). Luckily when kids are interested in crafts its not that uphill a task :).

I have a new student and I must say for a 10 year old she is really is quick at learning. I enjoyed teaching her and was surprised how fast she picked up the techniques. She has little background in quilling so its not totally new to her. She saw one of the cards I made with husking flower and wanted to make one. Here is what she made on her first attempt.

Our second class was all about fringed flowers. We made variations of the fringed flowers and then arranged them to make a card. It was a fun project and now she has a sample of each to practice later at home.

You can see our tutorial for fringed flowers here.

It is so fulfilling to see your student understand and enjoy what's being taught. We are going to attempt making a butterfly in our next class. With summer at its best in Seattle, it seems to be just the perfect project to try.

Paper Quilling : Butterfly and flowers

I have always wanted to try paper quilling and this is my first attempt at it. Paper quilling, also called paper filigree is the art of rolling paper strips and pinching/bending them at different places to create various shapes and use them to build patterns.

There are tools available for quilling but you can try the basic art without them too. I did not have the tools and wanted to try it before buying tools.

I used the following supplies to make the quilled butterfly :

1. Paper Strips of different colors ( I cut them myself using paper cutter, you can buy pre-cut quilling strips available in craft stores
2. Bamboo skewer to roll the paper strips
3. Glue

I cut thin paper strips and rolled them using the bamboo skewer.Once you roll the strip , take it off the skewer and leave it to open on its own.
The basic shapes that I have used are tear drop ( by pinching the rolled paper at one end) and petal (by pinching the rolled paper at both ends simultaneously). You can refer this link for other basic shapes used in quilling. Finally, I glued these shaped paper rolls together to create the butterfly.

By the time I had finished the butterfly I knew I will be doing paper quilling more often. So I got the quilling tool from the craft store. I also discovered my paper strips were little wider than the quilling strips available in market. As I got the tool I decided to add flowers to the project. The flower that I have added is called double fringed flower.

Instructions to make the double fringed flower:

Take a 4.5 cm by 10 cm paper strip. Fold it in the center length wise. Cut the strip at approx. 45 degrees along the folded edge as shown. To get uniform width at bottom I held a quilling trip at the open end while cutting the fringes.
Using the quilling tool roll a quilling strip of different color.Glue the other end to the fringed paper strip and roll the strip along. In the end glue the fringed paper strip. Your flower is ready. It definitely made it easy to roll the strip using the tool but you can try it out without one too.

I used shadow boxes to frame this quilled butterfly and flower project as you need some gap between the glass and back of the frame. I loved making this project and you will definitely see more of these paper quilling projects here in future. I hope you get inspired to try this beautiful art too. Happy quilling :).